“Then you are for going on as we are? It’s an awful risk, North, if things should go wrong.” “I have more at stake than you have, old man, and you may depend upon it that nothing but the firmest conviction that this course is the safest would make me advocate it. Of course, you boss this outfit, as Hicks would say----” “Oh, nonsense!” said Stratford. “I am not going to back half an opinion of my own against all your experience. We will stick to our morning and afternoon marches, North.” The decision thus reached was duly communicated to the guides, and received by them with sulky acquiescence. The next day’s march was uneventful; but the aspect of the country was gradually changing, and becoming more rocky, although it remained as barren and parched-looking as before. The halt that night was made at the foot of a steep cliff, which afforded protection in the rear, while a breastwork of baggage and saddles, arranged in the form of a semicircle, gave some guarantee against a successful attack in front. Again the hours of darkness passed without alarm, but the equanimity of the party was disturbed at breakfast by a domestic misfortune. Rahah, in floods of tears, came to inform her mistress that the white cat was lost. On the journey Colleen Bawn was always Rahah’s special care, travelling on the same mule, and occupying the pannier which contained Miss Keeling’s toilet requisites, and which was balanced by the maid in the opposite one. On this particular morning Rahah had sought her charge in vain. She knew that the kitten was generally to be found by Georgia’s side at breakfast-time, laying a white paw on its mistress’s wrist with dignified insistence when it had reason to imagine itself forgotten; but this morning the tit-bits remained unclaimed on Georgia’s plate. Rahah had searched the whole camp, she said, and Ismail Bakhsh’s son Ibrahim had helped her, but they could not find the white cat; and would the doctor lady request the gentlemen to stop the loading, and set all the men free to look for it? They had sworn to find the doctor lady’s pet if it took them all day to do it, and they knew that the little gentleman (this was the undignified name by which Fitz was invariably known among the servants) would help them. “I am afraid we can hardly sacrifice a day for such a purpose,” said Stratford, wavering between politeness and a sense of his responsibility as leader, as Georgia looked across at him; but Dick showed no such hesitation. “Miss Keeling would never think of your doing such a thing, Stratford. To hang about here, of all places, while Anstruther and the servants looked for a lost cat, would be a piece of criminal folly--one might almost say wickedness. We can’t risk the lives of the whole party for the sake of a cat. Here, ayah--take another good look about while we finish breakfast, and if you haven’t found the beast when we’re ready to start, we must leave it behind.”